Resident doctors during their last strike (Photo: Guy Smallman)
Resident doctors in England in the BMA union are set to walk out from 7am on 14 November for five days.
Previously known as junior doctors, resident doctors are taking action over the government’s failure to agree to a plan for jobs and pay restoration.
Currently, resident doctors’ pay is in freefall. There has been a 21 percent erosion in their pay since 2008, but health secretary Wes Streeting is offering only a 4 percent pay rise.
And they face widespread job insecurity. The BMA records that some 34 percent of first year doctors do not have a solid job offer or work lined up for the year.
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, Dr Jack Fletcher, says that “while we want to get a deal done, the government seemingly, does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action”.
Dennis, a resident doctor training in London, told Socialist Worker that the strikes were “a long time coming”.
He said, “What really demotivates us is the conditions we’re forced to work in.”
Fletcher added, “We need the health secretary to step up, come forward with a proper offer on jobs, on pay.”
Care workers employed by Wirral council struck last week.
More than a hundred care workers supporting disabled people returned to the picket line on Friday in an ongoing dispute over grading.
Unison members at the council’s Wirral Evolutions day services staged their first walkout on 8 October. A staggering 96 percent of members voted for strikes.
Workers say the current grading system does not reflect the full range of duties they undertake and the experience they bring to the table. Workers are demanding that bosses stop using “savings targets” as an excuse to keep pay low.
Bosses need to properly fund wage increases that reflect the expertise and skills involved in care.
The workers were set to strike again on Wednesday.
The Transport for Greater Manchester (TGfM) strike got off to a great start last Thursday.
Hundreds of Unison and Unite union members picketed, marching through the city and joining a lunchtime rally outside Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham’s office.
Workers were offered a below-inflation 3.2 percent pay rise.
The workers’ threat of action won concessions—£15 an hour and a 4 day condensed week for frontline staff.
But TfGM, led by Burnham, refuses to move on pay itself, so further action is planned this Wednesday and Friday.
Those on strike include interchange and office staff, route planners, IT technicians, administrators, control room operators, passenger assistance staff and cleaners. They have been encouraged by the successful bus drivers’ strike last month—their action forced bosses to double the pay offer.
Karen Reissmann
The long-running Birmingham bin strike has taken another turn.
Hundreds of Unite union members have been on strike since March after the Labour‑run council announced savage cuts. The council has used the police to break picket lines and the courts to ban workers from disrupting the council’s mass scab operation.
But workers from Job&Talent—those very agency workers used to break the strike—may potentially strike themselves.
The are currently balloting over the bullying, harassment and the threat of blacklisting. One manager was filmed telling agency workers that if they refused to cross the picket line, they would be banned from permanent roles.
“Management try and give you extra work every day, even if you genuinely don’t have the time to do it, they will force you to do it. If you speak up for yourself and your colleagues and if they don’t like what they hear, it’s one phone call to the agency and you’re gone,” one worker said. “It’s a really toxic environment.”
The ballot closes on 11 November. If the scabs strike, it will pile pressure onto the council. The Job&Talent workers should stand alongside permanent workers and force the council to roll back the attacks.
The all-out strike of over 40 workers at the National Coal Mining Museum is to be extended into the new year.
Workers at the museum in Wakefield, west Yorkshire, began the strike over pay on 20 August.
The decision to continue the strike until 28 January 2026 came after the museum’s management refused to improve upon the offer on the table.
Management has backtracked once before on promises over pay.
Wakefield Council voted in September to withhold funding from the museum in an act of solidarity with the workers until the dispute is resolved.
A staffing crisis in the NHS
Health workers set to strike across four Manchester hospitals
Bus workers rejected an offer and came back out
